United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I venture up the stone staircase, although most of the finely carved balusters are gone, and the arch-stones have so slipped out of place that they seem to cling together by the will of Providence rather than by any physical law.
He replied that he could readily describe his plan of the one they proposed to build, if they would be good enough to write down his figures. The span of the arch, 18 feet," said he, "being a semicircle, makes 27: the arch-stones must be a foot deep, which, if multiplied by 27, will be 486; and the basis will be 72 feet more.
The coupled windows are more deeply recessed, having three orders of moulded arch-stones instead of the two, as in the lower window of a similar date; and the arch is carried by three shafts attached as parts of the jamb-stones. The windows have label-moulds over them, and the abaci of the capitals are carried across the buttresses on either side as a string-course.
The ends of these walls, connected and steadied by the insertion of tee-stones, were built so as to abut against the back of the arch-stones and the cross walls of each abutment. Thus great strength as well as lightness was secured, and a very graceful and at the same time substantial bridge was provided for the accommodation of the district.*
Word Of The Day